Scheduling agents at contact centers is a complex process that typically involves a large number of variables to consider in generating schedules such as, for example, volume of communications to be handled (e.g., number of inbound communications typically received over a time period and/or number of outbound communications to be made over the time period), available staff, skills of various staff members (e.g., agents), reasons for communications (e.g., customer service, order taking, and/or sales), and number of communication sources (e.g., inbound call queues, outbound call queues, emails, and/or web chats). Further, in generating such schedules, forecasting techniques are typically employed to better predict scheduling variables based on historical data for such variables.
Although a good amount of effort has been put into creating products and processes for generating schedules for contact centers, deficiencies still exist with respect to products and processes for generating schedules for contact centers handling outbound communications. That is, many contact centers conduct what are known as outbound campaigns that generally relate to agents contacting a number of different parties for some specific purpose such as, for example, contacting a number of patrons of a particular charity to solicit donations before the end of the tax year. However, many of the products and processes available for scheduling such outbound campaigns fail to provide schedules for conducting outbound campaigns that are in line with many contact centers' goals of reducing operating costs, optimizing resources, maximizing customer service, and improving agent morale and performance. Furthermore, such products and processes are further deficient because, in many instances, contact centers conduct multiple outbound campaigns that overlap, run concurrently, contiguously, or approximate to one another and these products and processes cannot handle such situations.
Thus, a need in the art exists for improved processes for generating forecasts and schedules to conduct outbound campaigns. In addition, a need in the art exists for processes for generating forecasts and schedules in instances involving multiple outbound campaigns. Further, a need in the art exists for processes revising forecasts and/or schedules based on performance data collected for a portion of outbound campaigns being conducted. It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure herein is presented.